"Hotter than a bastard"*

Team Woodside's final weekend in Oz was spent on Rottnest Island. This is a lovely, quiet, underrated place a few km off the coast from Perth. No cars, few people, remarkable weather, spectacular beaches, a great road/cycle track circumnavigating the island and a real unspoiled feel. The principal inhabitants of the island are little marsupials known as Quokkas. These mini-kangaroos make themselves quite at home in the pub and restaurants. One of them, apparently named Roger, stole Winky's beer whilst his vision temporarily blurred as a result of the drubbing the Australian Rugby team were experiencing at the hands of the Springboks on the pub TV (Eddie and George - you've let me down once too often - it's enough to make a BLOKE switch allegiances back to the All-Blacks. Grrr.). The days were spent cycling, swimming and relaxing. On the Sunday L,M and W went scuba diving to check out the local marine life. All highly recommended.

On the way back to the Old Dart, most of the Woodside team took a little stopover in Dubai . Our non-exsistent corporate expense account didn't stretch to a stay in the hotel pictured, although we did drop by for a look. Quite a remarkable place. As for the hotel we did stay in...well let's just say it wasn't quite as photogenic. We swam in the tea-warm crystal clear Arabiam Gulf, sought respite in the fiercely air-conditioned shopping malls, took a little cruise on Dubai Creek (photo is of the golf course clubhouse - an oasis for expats?) and generally basked in the more-than-ample heat.

We rode the endless dunes in a 4x4 to an Arabian feast in the desert, complete with mud-like coffee, shisha, henna (for the girls), camel riding, kebabs and belly dancing.
Food and drink in Dubai is great. Fresh juices and kebabs that put the Botley Road kebab van in perspective.

The team is now in Oxford working "hard" to tidy up the SCP submission. All good fun.

We hope all of you guys had a fun summer like we did. Thankyou to those teams who contributed to the blog. We hope you enjoyed reading the posts as much as we did. See you round Oxford, guys. Take care.

*winky will buy a pint for the first person to place the quote

now that's a bunch of hot air

Did you know that Bristol is home to the largest ‘balloon fiesta’ in the world? Well, neither did I until I looked out my skylight window and a hot air balloon was flying nearly two meters above my flat…and then two and then three..four! Later in the evening thousands gathered for the 'nightglow' which entailed fire glowing balloons lighted up in sync with musical rhythms.


It was quite a sight because my flat is a conversion of an old church and some of the windows are stained glass (we even have a saint still on the roof above our kitchen--see pics). Well, that’s the word in Bristol. Random acts of kindness still occurring left and right here, too.

Its great to hear the stories of everyone's adventures in the blog. Happy Birthday to both Lionel and Michael today!

A whale of a Time

The weekend was another good one for Team Woodside.

Friday night, Leanne had her first taste of Kangaroo at a local pub. She was disappointed that it wasn't one she had killed herself but nevertheless pronounced it "very tasty".

On Saturday, Leanne and Winky cycled to Cottesloe for a fish and chips lunch & a bit of hanging about on the beach.

Saturday night the Team watched the Fremantle Dockers thump the Richmond Tigers at Subiaco Oval. A match of consequence (and some spite, as it turned out) with both teams vying for a place in the finals. (If you don't know what sport we are talking about, well - we're not surprised - it's a quirky antipodean pastime - see: AFL - an idiot's guide )

Sunday was spent lolling about on the vast Indian Ocean as we cruised the offshore reefs, looking for dinner. One of our team, cognisant of his predilection for "feeding the fish" had decided not to join us. The wind chop against the swell in the morning meant that at least one other team member perhaps wished for a while that he'd done the same and stayed on dry land. Indeed, his face matched the colour of the ocean for a bit. The chop died down, the sun came out and fish started to bite. We caught enough for a couple of dinners and were heading home happy. Then the real show began...


On the cruise back to the harbour, we were lucky enough to be visited by a pod of 4 whales - a mum and baby and a pair of big fellas. We hung with them for ages in a now-calm ocean and lovely blue skies. A nice moment that made us feel very fortunate to be suffering the Perth "winter".

Cheers from the Woodside Team.

A few more photos HERE

Team Keely's Adventures as a Banker in Bristol

Wassup!
Team Keely (me, myself and I) is living in Bristol and really enjoying it. I have officially deemed it the 'Friendliest Place on Earth' because I have experienced so many random acts of kindness here. For example, I missed the last bus home one night after salsa dancing and some random stranger went to the cash machine and gave me money for a taxi home….isn't that odd, but extremely nice? It is a fun city and its easy to meet new people with lots of parties and places to go out. I met up with two incoming SBS MBA students and did my best to scare them about all the work ahead of them... then we went salsa dacing.

As you can see, I had some rafiki visitors from SBS, too! This weekend, Luis, Alex, Hossam, Kalim, Natalia and I explored the beloved Bristol Suspension Bridge and had dinner outside on the harbour. It was a special weekend.

As for work, I am doing an internship with Triodos Bank, an ethical bank which does retail and investment banking for social and environmental businesses www.triodos.org. Proud to say that we financed renewables 10 yrs ago, before it was cool.

Well, that's all folks. Team Sam, if you want to extend the pub crawl to Bristol next time the Globe is closed, come on down to visit cuz we have over 500 places to go out here!

Warm wishes to all!

Sometimes....we bite back

shark at aqwa (photo by Leanne)

Leanne, soon after checking this guy out at the W.A. aquarium, tucked into a meal of shark and fries, just to show'em who's boss. More sharks are eaten by people than vice-versa, but this doesn't reduce the fascination that Anders and Mig have with the toothy fellows. A 30th anniversary edition of Spielberg's "Jaws" was aired on Sunday night and was avidly viewed by all on our team. Wink pronounced it "lame" when compared to his recollection as an impressionable 14 year old (when it kept him out of the ocean for the next 10 years). Leanne pronounced it "lame" when compared to her 21st century CGI experience. Anders and Mig simply pronounced it "lame".

L and W went indoor rock climbing last night where they were in-turn both entertained and embarrassed (depending on who was climbing and who was belaying).

Wink's mum visited for the weekend. Wink was absolutely delighted to have not just one, but two girls simultaneously pointing out his deficiencies as a member of the male species, whilst laughing long and loud at each other's astute and incisive observations regarding these issues.

Wink's mum taught Leanne how to knit, although she will eventually have to perform some research to figure out how to actually stop when she reaches the end of the scarf she has commenced.

We took a river cruise to Fremantle, passing the impressive, but sometimes tasteless homes of some of the richest people in W.A. Most seem to have made their money from mining, much to the satisfaction of Winky - not an I.B. amongst them!?

A movie was viewed. Leanne recommends "Monster-in-Law" as a great romantic comedy for those needing a little escape. Wink has insisted that the next movie features more car-chases, gunfire, explosions. and cleavage.

Weather has been great on weekends. Rainfall has politely restricted itself to mid-week.

Anyhow, must run...bye for now.
Leanne, Winky, Mig and Anders (Team Woodside)

A weekend trip to the near north

back beach at lancelin

The team took the opportunity to venture a few hours north of Perth to check out the area. Leanne was keen to see the "ootback". Don't know that we've been there yet. They don't actually have a big sign marking boundary.
First stop was Yanchep N.P. where the "tourists" got to check out the Koalas and Kangaroos, as per the standard operating procedure.
Then it was on to Lancelin, a sleepy surfing, sailboarding and fishing village that is surprisingly unchanged in the 20+ years since Winky took a sailboarding holiday here as a (very) young man. Mig and Anders took the opportunity for a dip in the Indian Ocean. The cold water definitely affected Anders' frontal lobes - the team was delayed on not one, but two occasions as Anders had to sprint back down to the beach, first to retrieve his sunglasses and then for his watch; all of which had been (unbelievably?) left behind in the sand.
A few beers at the pub, crayfish for lunch and it was off to the sandhills for some sandboarding. Various skill levels were demonstrated, but suffice to say, experience doesn't necessarily translate to competence. Checked out the TdF time trial on the telly at the Hostel before heading to bed.
The next day we moved on to Jurien and the Pinnacles - a pretty cool place.
Then back to Perth and into the planning for our next excape. Maybe into the real outback this time (it's pretty far, though)

Cheers from the team.

More photos here

More lectures......do they never end?

Perth by night
Originally uploaded by winkyintheuk.

The Woodside team were "lucky" enough to attend a one day course on operational management in the minerals and energy yesterday. Seriously, though, it was actually pretty interesting. We worked through a practical exercise where simple operational improvements reduced the time process time from 10 minutes on the first effort to around 0.4 seconds 30 minutes later. And the lunch was great.

Tonight we detoured via King's Park on the way home to check out the cityscape at night. The Woodside building is the second from the left in the photo...

Squash Showdown in the Southern Land

Leanne Serves up Another Bullet
Originally uploaded by winkyintheuk.

Lady Leanne and Macho Mig went head-to-head on the court earlier this week. It was an entirely credible performance from the Portugese Pundit, but LD was ultimately victorious. She was humble in victory, just as Mig was gracious in defeat.

Woodside Team - More photos

Cape Leuwin Lighthouse
Originally uploaded by winkyintheuk.

The trip took us Cape Leuwin which is at the confluence of the Indian and Southern Oceans. The whales and the dolphins run free in these parts, and whale watching is big business. The whales, however don't seem to get their share of the "economic rent", though it's better than it used to be. A couple of hours down the road is the old whaling port of Albany, where many a whale has seen the wrong end of a flensing knife in times now past.

See some more photos of the trip here